Kailh Extreme Slippery Switch Review

Note: In order to keep everything as fully transparent as possible, I feel inclined to inform all readers that I am currently sponsored by Kailh as of the time of writing this review. With this in mind, this review was conducted entirely of my own will and volition and without any notice to or support from Kailh. They did not receive an advanced copy of the review, editorial notes, nor in any way, shape, or form affected this review. All opinions here, as long winded as they may be, are expressly mine and mine alone.

As I’ve sunk further and further into the arthouse movie scene and begun enjoying movies that are increasingly esoteric, one of the types of movies I’ve surprisingly come to appreciate are those that are just utterly incomprehensible from front to back. Not incomprehensibly good or incomprehensibly bad – I’m talking about movies that are just so far out there in concept, plot, or execution that you just sit and struggle to put any coherent meaning to it at all during the runtime of the movie. You generally don’t tend to fair much better after the movie is over, either. Thankfully, my arthouse movie theatre I go to has a killer membership program and so I can just freely show up for and attend these types of movies without a care in the world for having spent some amount of money on something I really didn’t enjoy and as a result I recently got to see Matthew Rankin’s “A Universal Language”. Also known in some places as “The Song of A Turkey” from its direct Persian translation, this movie is a surrealist comedy-drama (?) that takes place in a weird, alternative modern day Winnipeg that is stranded somewhere culturally and linguistically between Iran and French Canada with characters engaging in increasingly strange acts throughout the entire movie. Visiting a world famous turkey collector, getting haggled by a walking Christmas tree for a cigarette, and even taking half hour long moments of silence at cemeteries crammed in the intersection of highway junctions are all just par for the course in what is an overall confusing jumble of a movie. Honestly I wish I could speak more towards what this movie is about or really what some more of the thematic elements are that actually happened in it, but I honestly couldn’t tell you the first damn thing about it other than these weird stand out scenes that are still trapped in my head a week later. Movies like this, as a broad generalization, are a wild ride and I think more people should really go and try and seek out these kinds of films when they get the chance. Not every movie you watch could or even should have a plot, compelling characters, or even a point. Sometimes a movie can just be successful if it makes you feel something… even if that something is confusion. It also makes me a bit more appreciative of how I structure my own reviews and how I editorially influence the direction of them in the process of them being written too.

Figure 1: Yeah this scene literally wasn't explained anywhere in the movie at all.

Switch Background

Despite the fact that many people not as deeply dug into the switch side of this hobby will associate the Kailh brand name with POM switches as a result of arguably one of their most famous switches that have been produced since 2018 in Novelkeys Creams, the reality is that Kailh has actually made both a lot more and a lot less POM switches than you would initially imagine. And yes, I mean both of those points simultaneously. On the ‘less than you would expect’ end of things, I don’t think many people have realized that since their inception Kailh has likely produce a bit over 300 different mechanical keyboard switches of all flavors, varieties, and types. A sizable portion of this number, as well, were made well before 2018 when the Creams were debuted as the first full POM switch in the custom keyboard scene. Kailh, itself, was founded all the way back in 1990 but didn’t see its first foray into the mechanical keyboard scene until the early to mid parts of 2014. Starting quite a bit earlier than most other factories which are well known for producing keyboard switches today, this part of 2014 was right around the time that both Cherry’s patent on the MX switch design footprint expired and Gateron also popped up and began producing mechanical keyboard switches of their own. Unlike Gateron which had some variety of colors and housing schemes that more closely aligned with the traditional MX-style design, Kailh separated itself by use of “winglatch” style housings which see the sides of the top housings clip onto the bottom housings firmly via one wide, switch-long latch rather than two small attachment pins on either side. This design specifically, as well as some of the other successes that Kailh had demonstrated early on in making click jacket style clickies, eventually bled into their most famous early collaboration with Razer, in which they both produced and branded a couple iterations of clicky Razer Green switches that continue to be sold to this day and often serve as a launchpad for gamers to enter the more customized end of this hobby. While these initial runs of Razer Greens were a big hit for Kailh, as well as some of their older collaborations with Novelkeys, it wasn’t until their 2018 collaboration with Novelkeys that resulted in the Novelkeys Cream switches that exponentially grew in popularity during the 2020 COVID pandemic that they designed something that was truly iconic of them. Being the first fully POM switches to hit the keyboard market, Kailh definitely had put some time and effort into the development of the Novelkeys Cream switches, though surprisingly they didn’t really pivot to making this the focal point of their switch designs moving forward. Instead, Kailh has sporadically introduced and then pulled away from full POM switches a couple of different times over the years since, resulting in what I can more or less summarize as three distinct ‘eras’ of release. (This is, of course, with the rare exception of random, one-off releases like those of the Kailh Canaries.) Where the ‘more than you would expect’ end of things comes into this discussion, though, comes at just the sheer number of switches in these eras that people have likely forgotten about…

Novelkeys Cream Family

Figure 2: Current Novelkeys Cream family photo sans unreleased prototypes and different Cream+ stem variants as of early 2025.

Having covered this family of switch releases multiple different times over the course of this website and via a few notable reviews such as the Novelkeys Cream Clickie, Novelkeys Cream Arc, and Novelkeys Cream+ Switch Reviews, I’m not sure there’s really all that much more that I can say here that hasn’t already been covered in these earlier articles. The eponymous switch which gave this family it’s name is that of the Novelkeys Cream switch, which are medium weight linear switches that were unique at their release for both having a slight fishy smell in the earliest batches and also daring to have housings made out of the same material that only stems were conventionally built of – POM. (Prior to their release, polycarbonate and nylon were effectively the only options with ‘special blends’ being exceedingly rare to encounter at the time.) With the latest entry to this family coming by way of the Cream Clickies in early 2023, the Novelkeys Cream family currently sits at 12 released switches and a handful of unreleased prototypes depending on where you draw the lines on belonging to the family and not. While all utilizing the same full POM construction like their original inspiration, this family consists of everything from an aggressive tactile to a truly progressive linear with an asymmetric spring and even a novel (no pun intended) clicking mechanism never seen before in keyboard switches elsewhere.

Ice Cream Family

Figure 3: Four of the 'Kailh Ice Cream Family' of switches including the original Blueberry and Strawberry flavors (Left) and Pink and Purple Akko collaborations (Right).

Spanning at least 12 iterations of switches released over 2023 and 2024, the success of the Novelkeys Box Cream switches saw Kailh take the design platform and molds established for such and use it to churn out an “Ice Cream Family” of switches. Having been released sporadically in groups over these couple of years, its kind of hard for me to remember exactly when they were debuted and which groupings went with what, though they have somewhat evolved in time. The earliest set of the Box Ice Cream switches game in the form of the Blueberry, Strawberry, and Blackberry flavors featuring cream colored, bifurcated top housings and stems that color matched their specific flavors. Following the releases of those, collaborations with VGN and Akko came about, each coming with a pink and purple color duo that were just named ‘Purple’ and ‘Pink’ the Akko collab and ‘Raspberry’ and ‘Aurora’ for the VGN one. The final iterations of releases that completely skip past the one off ‘Avocado’ flavor were those of the Taro, Tea, and lime green colored Vanilla flavors which kept the same color scheme pattern but introduced light diffusers into their designs in place of the bifurcated through-switch LED slot. Unfortunately for you all, I don’t have all of these iterations as I kind of forgot they existed until I sat down for this review and so I’ll have to work to acquire some for the collection for a proper family photo at some point in time.

The Trio of Trios

Figure 4: While not a full POM trio, you know Kailh has always historically enjoyed making sets of three. (Novelkeys x Kailh Box Burnt Orange, Dark Yellow, and Pale Blue)

The most recent era of Kailh dipping their toes back into the full POM switch pond has come in the form of three distinctly different trios of switches. While quite a few switch manufacturers will release thematically connected duos or even ‘runs’ of switch releases, Kailh has always been one that seems to prefer trios – something which dates as far back as their 2016-2017 era collaborations with Novelkeys in the form of the Burnt Orange, Dark Yellow, and Pale Blue colored switches in many different forms, among others. The first of these trios to be released came in the middle of 2024 in the form of the Kailh Mistral, Flame, and Hornet switches and rode on the back of the growing wave of community wide interest in Hall Effect compatible switches. Of these, the Hornets were the most successful commercially and likely as a result of their direct collaboration with and inclusion in prebuilt keyboards from Melgeek. Slightly later in 2024, a collaboration between Kailh and LoFree resulted in a trio of new low profile POM switches that utilized Kailh’s newest MX-compatible designs that departed from their more iconic and historically under supported Choc low profile switch platform. This Shadow Series trio featured dark green, purple, and dark blue low profile switches respectively called ‘Ghost’, ‘Phantom’, and ‘Wizard’ for a more mystical theming.

Figure 5: Kailh's 2024 Hall Effect Trio including the Mistral (Left), Flame (Center), and Monsgeek collaboration Hornets (Right).

Figure 6: Marketing render for Kailh's Full POM 'Shadow Series' Trio from 2024 including Ghost, Phantom, and Wizard switches.

The latest trio of this trio of trios is that of the nominally challenging ‘Extreme’ series of switches. Not to be confused with the previous Kailh and Chosfox collaboration ‘Box Extreme’ switches or any of their Super Speed or Turbo lines of releases, this trio all come in a white translucent color with a normal, a dustproof, and Box design variant. While it would certainly make sense to refer to these switches as Box, Dustproof, and just ‘normal’, Kailh instead to choose to maximize the confusion by referring to the normals as ‘Extremely Intelligent’, the dustproofs as ‘Extremely Slippery’, and the Box switches as ‘Extremely Smooth’. Honestly the combination of these names and sheer visual similarity makes me feel not extremely intelligent in the slightest and more smooth brained when trying to remember which one is which. Unlike the other trios of full POM switches that arrived before them, though, these switches do not seem to connect to a coherent theme, do not appear to be partnered with any prebuilt keyboard manufacturer, and above all physically feel different. Rather than carrying a matte appearance and texturing like all other Kailh POM switches mentioned above, the ‘Extreme’ trio features a more smooth, polished, and physically slippery to the touch POM formulation instead. Without any clarity from Kailh as to whether or not this is the case, this differentiation is what initially pushed me to pick these switches up as this might suggest a potential departure in the POM formulation used by Kailh in previous releases, or at least a different formula being used altogether. After all, as discussed elsewhere in my Wuque POM+ Switch Review, not all POM is quite the same from release to release…

Figure 7: Some marketing translations even refer to this as the "primary color series" so it's evident to me that these had quite a few different marketing translation issues throughout rollout.

First announced all the way back in November of 2024, the Kailh ‘Extreme’ series of switches were first made available to western audiences sometime towards the very beginning of 2025. Without a championing western vendor of prebuilt company supporting their design and wider market roll out, the community awareness of these switches has largely been limited to sparse social media posts from Kailh and their more western facing storefronts. (My lot of switches specifically came from this source, but through a sponsor and long time supporter and friend of the website in SwitchOddities, which is the only other place that I’m aware of in the west currently selling these switches.) Currently on Kailh’s storefront, these switches are available at price points of $0.41 per switch for the normal stem ‘Extremely Intelligent’ switches, $0.70 per switch for the Box stem ‘Extremely Smooth’ switches, and $0.50 per switch for the dustproof ‘Extremely Slippery’ switch. With Kailh being a bit inconsistent on their long term support for even some of their more highly engineered designs (i.e. Midnight Pro Duo), it is uncertain as to how long these switches or the new POM formula they seem to employ will remain around.

Extreme Slippery Performance

Note: This switch has several different name variations depending on which source it is translated from. I’ve chosen to refer to it as the ‘Extreme Slippery’, though know that all performance metrics discussed below are for that of the rectangular dustproof stem ‘Extreme’ switch.

Appearance

At the highest level, the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches come in a fully ghost-like translucent white color scheme that is equally matched by the other two switches in the ‘Extreme’ trio of releases. Unlike the Box and normal stemmed variants of the ‘Extreme’ trio, the Extreme Slippery switches feature a traditional, rectangular shaped dustproof stem and a mid-height LED light diffuser that is similar in shape and execution to quite a few other recent Kailh switches that feature such. From a distance the Extreme Slippery switches kind of remind me of several other switches in passing – original Gazzew Boba U4s for their paleness, some very early Durock/JWK Silent Linears known as ‘Ghosts’ for their opacity, and then quite a few other all white switches like the KTT Chalks. Unlike all of these other switches, though, the Extreme Slippery switches are distinguishable because of their highly glossy sheen on all facets of housings. Also able to be felt in the form of a super smooth, almost polished textural finish on all parts of this switch, this in combination with the newly designed and inverted ‘Kailh’ nameplate makes these switches identifiable once you get their hands on them. While there are not a whole lot of inventive technical details present in these switches, there are a few that are note worthy on each of the parts that make up this switch. All of these details that can be found at the sub-part level are discussed and photographed in the following sections.

Figure 8: Kailh Extreme Slippery switches and their components.

Looking first to the ghostly white, smooth POM top housings of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches, there are quite a few details that I recall having seen in bits and pieces of other Kailh switch designs. Unlike the vast majority of those switches that come to mind, though, a lot of these design features have only ever been combined most recently and in a rare few of Kailh’s full POM switches. This rare combination of design details include the new lowercase, bubble lettered inverted ‘Kailh’ nameplate which first started showing up in mid-late 2024, a wide open LED slot for the accompaniment of a through switch LED light diffuser, and a general lack of internal mold markings. While it’s entirely possible that I just am completely missing where these top housings are marked either externally or internally, I genuinely don’t think these parts quite have mold stamps like those of the vast majority of other Kailh parts before them. Despite having not yet reviewed all too many recent Kailh housing designs, I also feel like the internal structuring of these housings is minorly different – with the small bracketing and increased wall thickness underneath the nameplate region being the main culprits I’m pointing to. Without also having cracked open any other Kailh switches to actually substantiate this claim, I also feel like the south side guiding rail that is attached to the wall that touches the LED/diode slot is also a bit more shallow and less pronounced than other Kailh releases. It is almost definitely less pronounced here than in switches from other manufacturers, though.

Figure 9: Kailh Extreme Slippery top housing external design showing open gate for LED light diffuser and inverted, new text style 'Kailh' nameplate.

Figure 10: Kailh Extreme Slippery top housing internal design showing lack of quickly recognizable mold markings and general lack of texturing in POM material used.

Moving next to the equally ghostly white POM stems of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches, we are greeted with a total design execution that is most similar to that of other existing Kailh switches. These stems, despite being made of a more glassy and polished POM material, effectively appear just like a normal dustproof linear stem from Kailh and even have dimensions that largely measure up fairly normally relative to that of most other modern switches. Perhaps the only thing that is apparently different is that of the slightly longer than average tapered stem poles at 13.86 mm in length, which makes sense considering the overall shortened total travel distance of this switch around 3.35 mm in total. The only other feature worth noting here in the Extreme Slippery stems is that they feature a pretty liberal factory lubing on them even by Kailh’s standards. While this lube does appear to congregate more in the bottom housings of these switches as discussed in the next paragraph below, in stock form it appears pretty well coated on all sides of the stems including the front plates, back plates, and squared off slider rails.

Figure 11: Kailh Extreme Slippery stem front and back showing tapered center poles, squared off slider rails, and trace amounts of factory lubing on side rails and back plate.

Finally arriving to the still ghostly white, translucent POM bottom housings of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches, this is where the majority of the few interesting technical design details appear. The first and most apparent of these features is that of the massive amount of factory lube that is aggregated in the internal base of the bottom housing. Located largely on the East and West sides of the center pole hole and on top of the ring that surrounds the base of this feature, it should be noted that any lube that can be seen in the photos below came from a stock switch and not one which had experienced any lube migration via use or by break in. As well, the remainder of the internal features are surprisingly fairly barren, with no sub-feature details in the guider rails of the housings, no massive mold ejector or injector sprue markings, nor any south side spring collar to further modify the feeling of these designs. (Perhaps this formulation of POM has a harder time being injection molded into these finer details?) On the underside, the Kailh Extreme Slippery bottom housings come in 5 Pin/PCB mount variety and feature both two mold markings underneath each of the PCB mounting pins and an inverted anticounterfeit mark between the two metal PCB pins. Consisting of the Kailh logo and name, this is similar in execution to that of more recent Gateron anticounterfeiting measures post Stealios Controversy and even some early Razer switch iterations from TTC, Greetech, and Kailh. As a final point of note, the metal leaves of the Extreme Slippery switches also appear slightly different as the pin outs are copper colored for the larger leaf and silver colored for the smaller one – something which is typically either both copper- or silver-colored in most modern MX style switches.

Push Feel

After having tested out the in hand performance of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches, I’m starting to think that the slippery name was equally as much a weird translation thing as that of the ‘Intelligent’ name for the normal stemmed variants of this full POM trio. Despite all of the factory lubing that I could find in the stock switches upon visual inspection of both the stems and bottom housings, these switches really aren’t overly smooth and instead have a slightly chalky scratch to them that is subtle but noticeable in the switches. This chalkiness is noticeable throughout all points of both up and downstrokes, and while somewhat distracting is again a bit subtle and further passivized by being consistent in appearance across the batch of switches that I received and tested. While I also do like to try and comment on when I think the physical material properties of the stems and/or housings are actually playing a role in the performance of these switches, I’m honestly not all that certain that the smoothness is being tangibly benefited here by the use of this newer, smoother, more polished POM material. And yet, it is noticeably distinct from the in hand feeling I recall of other Kailh-made POM switches that have more matte formulas. I’m somewhat struggling to put to words how these are appreciably different than that of normal POM material aside from their obvious textural differences. As for the housing collisions of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches, this is the one specific part of this review where I feel like the ‘glassy’ texture description is the most directly applicable. The bottom outs of these switches are rather firm with a touch of softness that maintains just enough pointiness to stand out under your fingers but not poke back at you and analogously sticks out in my head as if I’m tapping on a thick piece of tempered glass with a hefty pen or tool of some sort. There is a depth to the housing collisions here that is more than just a sum of its individual parts. Surprisingly, as well, this depth and hefty glass-like feeling is both well balanced between top and bottom housing and does not change much if at all at faster typing speeds. And finally as for the travel distance, the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches definitely feel short enough in stroke under my fingers that I feel it matches their force curve below, though the fact that the stems and top housings almost come flush together at bottom out makes this shortened travel distance feel much more full and long than strokes which are shortened by less conventional aftermarket means.

Figure 12: Force curve diagram for the stock Kailh Extreme Slippery switch.

Sound

The Kailh Extreme Slippery switches not only continue the multi-year long website meme of ‘switches have sound profile notes that are interchangeable with their push feeling notes’, but do so as the first switch in my fifth year of posting reviews! Unlike previous times where this meme is referenced, though, it is not specific words or sets of descriptors that align between push feeling and sound, but rather the entire analogy of a firm pen being tapped onto tempered glass. These switches have a medium to loud volume that is flat, with a slightly high pitched tone, and are entirely driven by the bottom out of these switches. It's not sharp, it’s not pointy, and it’s certainly not grating through it really is a bit more in-your-face and aggressive than perhaps what their physical in hand smoothness would initially suggest. Surprisingly, as well, these notably aggressive features don’t change much in tone, volume, or aggressiveness with faster or more heavily handed typing patterns – something which I feel like tends to be the opposite with switches of this sort as aggressive types become even more aggressive under aggressive typing practices. Where the sound of the Extreme Slippery switches deviates from the push feeling notes above though comes in the basic lack of noticeable scratch sound at all. In fact this chalky scratchiness, which almost sounds ironically a touch dry, is really only noticeable in the stock forms of these switches when pressing them directly up against your ear. Any sort of normal use case for these switches basically sees no influence on their sound profile by scratch.

Wobble

While I am somewhat sympathetic to the known fact that POM is a bit trickier to injection mold than more conventional engineering thermoplastics like nylon or polycarbonate, the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches have a frustrating average to below average amount of stem wobble. Present ever so slightly more in the N/S than E/W directions, there is enough wobble to bother users that are more picky about stem wobble but not likely enough to bother most people. Builds that feature tall keycap profiles such as MT3 or SA ones will almost certainly exacerbate this feature more than most people may be comfortable with.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

Figure 14: Numerical details regarding the stock Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1000 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- The break in testing of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches was a bit odd in that at 17,000 actuations it really did not register any specific, targetable differences in the push feeling or sound of the switches as compared to their stock forms and yet they were markedly different in their consistency. Switches broken in to this degree were definitely less homogeneous in their sound and scratchiness than the stock forms, but they really didn’t come across drastically more smooth or less smooth in either category. Honestly, I feel as if this is a really nuanced point I’m not sure I can really get across to you all.

- Despite the nuance and uniqueness of the break in pattern of the Extreme Slippery switches, they do still seem to fall victim to the age old tale of increasing in N/S and E/W direction stem wobble slightly upon break in.

34,000 Actuations

- The same subtle and hard to pin down differences in tone and feeling at 17,000 actuations were also noticeable in the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches that were broken in to 34,000 actuations. Surprisingly, though, what was distinctly different though was that of the volume of the switches. Likely as a result of migration of the substantial amount of factory lube present, the Extreme Slippery switches broken in to 34,000 actuations had a much larger range in overall volume than either stock or 17,000 actuation switches.

51,000 Actuations

- At 51,000 actuations, there were really no subtle or overarching changes in the push feeling and/or sound profile of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches. Instead, there was only a further slight increase in the N/S and E/W stem wobble of these switches. This is something that is pretty expected and par for the course with the historical break in testing that I’ve carried out on this site.

Figure 16: Comparative force curve diagram showing no trend in change in the force curves of the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches during break in. However, the 51,000 actuation switch curve does look noticeably more rough than all other curves collected.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches side by side.

Figure 17: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Akko Mirror, Cherry MX 'New Nixie', Novelkeys Cream, Keygeek Oat, Gateron Oil King, and Huano Caramel Latte)

Akko Mirror

- In terms of a head to head push feeling comparison with the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches, the Akko Mirrors are far and away the smoother options with a factory lubing that feels not only more substantial but also more impactful in the overall strokes than the Extreme Slippery switches.

- There is noticeably less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the HMX-made Akko Mirror switches than there is in the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

- Very surprisingly to me, the weight and total stem travel distance of both of these switches actually does feel as similar as what the comparative force curve between them below would suggest. That being said, though, the departure in their similarity occurs at the bottoming out with the Mirrors have a more deep and cushioned feeling bottom out than the firmer, more resounding bottom outs of the Extreme Slippery switches.

Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’

- Much to my surprise, the Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’ switches actually have less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the stock Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

- Despite the improved factory lubing of the Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’ switches as part of the MX2A platform introduced by Cherry on their release, the New Nixies are more scratchy in their downstrokes and more consistently so across a batch of switches than the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

- While the New Nixie switches certainly do feel a bit heavier than the Extreme Slippery switches at bottom out, I’m not entirely sure that that difference is quite as big as what is suggested by the comparative force curve or their differences in linearity below. Perhaps this is just one of those production variation things related to the Nixies that I was comparing in hand to the Extreme Slippery switches.

Novelkeys Cream

- As noted above in the full length review, the original Novelkeys Cream switches have a bit more of a sandpapery like feeling to their scratch in their stock forms which I’ve always felt is emblematic of ‘full POM’ switches. The Extreme Slippery switches here, though, don’t quite have that and instead have a much more smooth stroke and only the tiniest amount of a subtly chalky scratch feeling.

- The Kailh Extreme Slippery switches are noticeably louder than that of the original Novelkeys Cream switches and it is entirely because of their stem pole bottom out that is firm, glassy, and pretty substantial. If this was removed from the equation entirely these switches would more or less have the same overall volume as one another.

- There is a touch less stem wobble in both N/S and E/W direction in the Extreme Slippery switches than there is in the original Cream switches.

Keygeek Oat

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Keygeek Oats are the most different from the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches. The Oats are much smoother, much quieter, more subdued, and altogether just more compact in feeling and in sound profile than the Extreme Slippery switches. (I suppose this almost extends to comparisons between the Keygeek Oats and almost all switches on this list except for the Huano Caramel Lattes, for what it is worth.)

- There is quite a bit less stem wobble in the N/S and E/W directions of the Keygeek Oats than there is in the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

- Even though the comparative force curve between these two switches below would suggest that they are largely similar, it does feel as if the Keygeek Oat switches bottom out significantly further into their downstrokes than the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches. They certainly do not feel as if they are only a tenth or two of a millimeter apart.

Gateron Oil King

- Spiritually the Gateron Oil Kings are the most similar to the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches out of any of the switches on this list. I say that because both of these are fairly smooth switches that are also demonstrably overlubed and ‘under smooth’ for how much factory lube was applied to them by their respective manufacturers.

- The Gateron Oil Kings have slightly less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

- Much like with the Akko Mirror overall sound profile comparison above, the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches are only louder than that of the Gateron Oil Kings as a result of their more aggressive, pointed bottom out that the Oil Kings simply don’t have. Otherwise, these switches would have a similar overall tonality and sound profile.

Huano Caramel Latte

- Of all of the switches on this list, the Caramel Lattes are the most dissimilar to the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches in terms of their overall sound profile and that’s because the Caramel Lattes are just so damn silent. They’re borderline silent linear in their appearance when compared head to head with the Extreme Slippery switches.

- There is significantly less stem wobble in the N/S and E/W directions of the Caramel Latte switches than there is in the Kailh Extreme Slippery switches.

- Despite the differences in bottoming out aggressiveness, the Kailh Extreme Slippery and Huano Caramel Latte switches are the most similar to each other in terms of their overall strokes and certainly have the most realistic comparative force curve of all of the switches on this list.

Linearity

Figure 24: Absolute and relative Linearity and Slope values for each switch in this comparison section.

Figure 25: Qualitative comparison of the normalized Slope and Linearity for each switch in this comparison section.

If you are just now seeing this section for the first time and are a bit confused as to what I am talking about when discussing ‘Slope’ and ‘Linearity’, I highly suggest checking out my article titled ‘On Differences in Linear Switches’ where I explain what this section is for and how it came to be! For a bit of a shorter answer, know that this is part of my ongoing attempt to better quantify and articulate differences between linear switches which have historically not been captured in discussions about them.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.